Distinguish between response-oriented and mitigation-oriented disaster financing in India, with reference to SDRF and SDMF.

India's disaster financing flows from the Disaster Management Act, 2005 and Finance Commission awards under Article 280 — the Sixteenth Finance Commission has recommended a corpus of ₹2,04,401 crore for state disaster funds for 2026-31 [2]. Within it, the SDRF and SDMF embody two distinct philosophies: reacting to a disaster versus reducing the risk of one.

Purpose and timing

• SDRF is the primary fund with States for immediate relief to victims of notified disasters — evacuation, cooling shelters, ex-gratia and reconstruction — and is inherently post-event [1].
• SDMF is pre-event: it finances long-term risk reduction such as early-warning systems, cool-roof programmes and urban Heat Action Plans, created for the first time on Finance Commission advice as a dedicated mitigation window [3].

Scope and eligibility

• SDRF spending is confined to the centrally notified calamities — cyclone, drought, earthquake, fire, flood, tsunami, hailstorm, landslide, avalanche, cloudburst, pest attack and frost/cold wave [1]. States may divert only up to 10% of SDRF to locally-defined disasters outside this list [1].
• SDMF funds projects, not relief. With heatwave and lightning added on the Sixteenth Finance Commission's recommendation in 2026, Heat Wave Mitigation Projects became squarely fundable — heat could earlier be met only through the discretionary 10% route [3].

Financing pattern

• Both share the Centre-State ratio of 90:10 for north-eastern and Himalayan States and 75:25 for others, the Centre's share totalling ₹1,55,916 crore [2]. The response window absorbs the bulk of the corpus, reflecting a still relief-heavy architecture.

Outcome orientation

• SDRF outlays recur and rise with every event; SDMF outlays compound as avoided losses, but require credible project pipelines and state Heat Action Plans to be drawn down at all.

The two are complementary phases of one cycle, not competing claims. Strengthening SDMF absorption capacity — technical appraisal, city-level plans, monitoring of heat-specific spending — would shift India from a relief-centric to a resilience-centric model, aligning disaster finance with climate adaptation goals under SDG 13.